iPhone apps that make weight loss hi-tech
If you own an iPod or iPhone, you have access to a legion of apps designed to turn your device into a powerful health and fitness aid. The apple App Store offers hundreds of independently developed applications; here are some of the most popular applications to rev up your health routine.
iPump Total Body: iPump has developed some 20 fitness apps that the iTunes store sells, but Total Body ($2.99) is perhaps the least specialized of these, and thus the best to start with. iPump gives you speech, text, and image presentations of preset workouts, each one including some cardio for warm-up and warm-down. When you’re done with a workout, the app notes the accomplishment and keeps track of which ones you’ve already completed. The idea is to cycle through all of the workouts so that you never get bored.
RunKeeper: RunKeeper ($9.99) is a Nike+ app that works with your iPhone. It tracks your runs using the iPhone’s GPS radio, and then displays your jogging or walking pace, your distance, and your time. It can even spit out a nice bar graph displaying your speed over a given time period. After your run is over, you can log on to www.runkeeper.com to see your run displayed on a Google map. What didn’t RunKeeper’s developers think of ?
iSpinning: iSpinning is a great (and free) little app for road biking and mountain biking workouts. It uses a growing number of body sensors to track stuff like your heart rate (current, average, and max), biking time, calories burned, speed, distance, and power. You can customize the app’s dashboard on your iPhone to display just the metrics you care about.
HangTimer: This $10 app lets snowboarders, skiers, and skateboarders measure their jumps. It identifies the exact length of time they were airborne and the exact GPS location where the jump took place. HangTimer also delivers snow reports, detects ski resorts, and maintains a list of your 10 best jumps.
Quitter: Smoking and fitness, of course, don’t mix. The free Quitter app keeps track of the number of days you have not smoked a cigarette, along with the amount of money you’ve saved by removing cigarettes from your budget.
Weightbot: This is your personal weighttracking robot. Whether you are trying to lose (or gain) weight, tracking your progress has never been more fun. Set your goal, record weight, view your BMI, and see your progress on a beautiful graph. Weightbot was designed for everyone to use.
Yoga STRETCH Neil Harris: This is your own personal Yoga instructor, available where you want it, when you want it for just $1.99. The computerized instructor walks you through a full session of Yoga including audio commentary, images and music. It is designed to improve strength, balance, posture and flexibility.
Calorie Tracker from LIVESTRONG.COM: Free for a limited time, the application lets you look up or track your daily caloric, fat, carbohydrate and protein intake with the click of a button. You will have access to The Daily Plate at LIVESTRONG.COM, which offers a comprehensive nutrition database of more than 450,000 food and restaurant items.
by Sherri Powers
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